Mission Falafel Ends Horribly

I'm on a diet. I'm on a diet because I am fat and as we all know fat people die sooner then skinny people and I like being here so I'd like to extend my ticket by becoming skinny.

But, I also like to eat. Life has few pleasures. For me these include food, football, whiskey, certain beers, video games, marijuana and chasing women. Love, marriage, commitment and maintaining the guise of being a responsible member of society unfortunately puts the last two items on this list to swift death. This leaves us with food, booze, video games and the Giants. The diet restricts booze, the Giants don't play until tomorrow and I had to work this weekend so so that leaves us with eating.

I took a stern look at what foods were allowed by my diet and I noticed that chick-peas, olive oil and spices were all on the A-OK list. So I decided - I'm going to make falafel.

Now - let me set the record straight. I love falafel. I love it like Gandi and Jesus love peace on earth for all mankind. The fact that falafel if made correctly was allowed on my diet was like a gift from god handed down from heaven to be shared among his chosen people, if his chosen people were me and falafel were the 10 Commandments.

So I put my chef hat on.

Now - if you know me, this should give you pause. I have a hard time cooking eggs, I've set fires trying to cook things and the only thing I've ever been able to make that anyone other then me has been able to choke down without frowning or worse was a Cowboy cut steak which I essentially just salted and dropped on a BBQ in my old NYC apt (mmmmm steak). But - of late I have been dabbling for the sake of my health and today would be triumph. I would have falafel, even if it meant scalding myself.

So I went to Trader Joe's with the Strokes playing in my I-Pod and a fervent sense of destiny in my toes. I bought myself some canned chick-peas, some olive oil, some chick-pea flour (because I can't eat wheat) and a big as bottle of olive oil. I paid, grabbed my bag, gave the counter a girl a wink because I'm sexy bastard and rolled home full of excitement and promise.

[cut three hours later]

I am a disillusioned, broken man who is still cleaning up the mess, nursing oil burns and instead of eating gorgeously delicious falafel, I instead had to force feed myself some moist oily matter consisting of burned chick-peas, salt and matted chickpea flour.

As it turns out, you need a PHD to prepare this tasty treat. Things went down a bit like this:

5pm - I pull a recipe for falafel from epicurious, which strangely reminds me of the term "bi-curious" and the website just by it's title seems to make cooking seem gay. Not one to be put back by homophobia, I print the recipe which seems to be a no-brainer. Though the recipe has multiple, fairly complex steps my brain interprets them as "mix some shit up" "pour some oil in the pan", "add mixed up shit to pan", "fry shit in pan" , "eat". Easy, awesome and all low GI foods. What could possibly go wrong?

5:15pm - I frown a bit because the recipe calls for dried chick peas. All I have is canned. I continue, unphased. I uncan and boil the chick peas.

5:20pm - my patience waiting for the chick peas to get soft runs out.

5:25pm - Sarah convinces me that making falafel with semi-hard chick-peaks is a bad idea. I watch a tivo-ed Scrubs, fast forward through commercials and take them off 15 minutes later. They are moderately soft, thanks to be jacking the burner flame to "ignite" while I waited. When I get there all the water is boiled away.

6pm - I mix all the crap the recipe calls for into a bowl, only mildly paying attention to the recommended dosages and adding heaping portions of things that I like. Things I like include salt and garlic. Cummin seemed strange and foreign so I just left it out. I later regret this. "Going commando" when cooking while as much fun as it's underwareless cousin, turns out to be just as bad an idea.

6:15pm - I add all the stuff into the food processor and realize there is way too much to fit. Not wanting to do this twice I force it all in with my fist.

6:20pm - The food processor starts making some very odd noises and smelling like burning. I turn it off so Sarah doesn't notice I've broken it.

6:30pm - I finish mashing all the chick peas with a spoon and find the biggest pan I can and fill it olive oil, I again set the burner flame to ignite and sit down to catch another few minutes of Scrubs (I love this show) while the oil heats.

6:45pm - Sarah yells at me to remind me that my oil is on the stove bubbling uncontrollably.

7:00pm - I add the falafel in large balls to the oil. I learn a very quick lesson that when you put something wet into a pool of really hot oil, the oil gets mad at you and spits little bits into the air that quite often land on your arms causing damage to the skin there. After a few yelps and a cry for help, Sarah (who quickly came to my rescue) and I watch with vexation, honest surprise and concern as the falafel balls who held so much promise and possibility, slowly dissolve into an oily, burned, brown chick-pea sludge.

7:05pm - I wonder where 2 hours of my life has gone as I watch olive oil bubbling slowly into a thick and inedible, falafel-mud.

7:15pm - Tired of watching my the green-ish beige lumps of hope and effort slowly dissolve into crap like the bad Vampire effects in Blade 2, I fish out the semi-cooked, still sort of whole lumps of burned chick-pea out of the oil where I can. Sarah stares at me dubiously.

7:30pm - I eat one of them. They taste like raw dough, dipped in oil and rolled in flour. They are both dry and slimy at the same time. I liken them to eating bugs. My best shot at describing is if you can imagine that you took really dry humus that had been saturated in garlic and salt, covered it in baby powder and then forced fed it yourself.

7:45pm - Hungry and still refusing to admit defeat - I cover them with Tahina to hide my shame, nod to my wife and say, "They're not bad actually.". When she turns away I throw them out and make sure I say loud enough so she can hear me in the office, "Wow, those were good afterall. You just had to give them time." If I am heard, I am ignored.

9pm - It takes a nearly an hour and half to clean all the dishes, the giant mess in the kitchen and the burn wounds on my forearms.

9:30pm - I write this blog. I am very hungry. I burp garlic. I decide cooking is over-rated.